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Ecuador was until relatively recently seen as one of the safest countries in Latin America. That reputation has surely now been destroyed. On Jan. 9, 2024, images of hooded gunmen storming a TV studio were broadcast around the world. It was one of a number of violent incidents that took place that day, including prison riots, widespread hostage-taking, the kidnapping of several police officers and a series of car explosions. I have been tracking how gang crime has affected states in Latin America for 38 years. When I started, few would have projected that Ecuador would descend into the crisis it finds itself today. But the story of Ecuador reflects a wider story of how countries across Latin America have struggled with organized crime and transnational drug gangs and how they have responded. Ecuador now looks set to follow the recent path of El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele’s leadership in trying to crack the gang problem through the use of military and the suspension of democratic norms. In the aftermath of the Jan. 9 violence, Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa named 22 gangs as terrorist organizations – a designation that makes them legitimate military targets. He has also imposed a 60-day state of emergency, during which Ecuadorians will be subject to curfews while armed forces try to restore order in the streets and the country’s gang-controlled prisons. Ecuador: Victim of geography To understand why Ecuador has become the epicenter of gang violence, you need to understand both the geography and history of Latin America’s drug trade. Ecuador, a nation of 18 million people, is situated between Colombia in the north and Peru in the east and south. Colombia and Peru are the two top producers of cocaine in the world. Further, Ecuador has a near-1,400 mile (2,237-kilometer) coastline through which drugs from the continent can be taken to markets in Europe and the United States. But it wasn’t until the U.S.-led “war on drugs” put the squeeze on cartels in other countries that Ecuador became the preserve of narco gangs. Plan Colombia In the 1980s and 1990s, Colombia was the center of the international illegal drug trade. This is hardly surprising, given that it was the top producer of coca leaves. But beginning in 2000, a joint initiative between Colombian authorities and the U.S., known as Plan Colombia, pumped billions of dollars into an effort to clamp down on the Colombian cocaine trade. While it may have been successful in supressing drug cartels in Colombia itself, it has had a balloon effect elsewhere in the region: Squeeze in one place, the bulge appears elsewhere. In this case, it was Mexico’s cartels that “bulged” first. Over the past decade, there has been a massive growth in Mexican cartels, led by the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación, or Jalisco New Generation. In fact, a study last year found that Mexican cartels were in effect the country’s fifth-largest employer. These cartels came to dominate the illegal drug trade in Latin America, not just for cocaine, but also the trafficking of heroin and more lately fentanyl. Aligning themselves with Clan Del Golfo – a Colombian paramilitary organization formed from the remnants of the gangs dismantled under joint Colombian-U.S. operations – the cartels helped traffic drugs through Ecuador and out of South America. They were joined by European gangs, notably from Albania, who began to show up in Ecuador. The impact locally of these outside gangs has been disastrous for Ecuador. Prior immunity European and Mexican organizations ran local operatives as enforcers and transporters. And these are the people who have become the backbone of Ecuador’s gang problem today. Ecuadorian gangs such as Los Choneros developed as a de facto subsidiary of the Sinaloa and other cartels. The escape from jail of Los Choneros’ leader, Jose Adolfo Macias, on Jan. 7, 2024, set off the latest explosion of violence. But Ecuador’s descent into violence and chaos has also been aided by the very fact that for so long it was immune from the worst of the gang violence of the region. For many years, Ecuador had one of the lowest homicide rates in Latin America – an indicator of low gang activity. As a result, it hadn’t developed a robust police and military response to gangs. Ecuador, in comparison to Colombia, El Salvador and other countries, was seen as a “soft touch” to organized crime bosses. This became ever more the case in 2009 when former President Rafael Correa closed down the U.S. air base in Manta, from where American AWAC surveillance planes had been monitoring and trying to disrupt drug trafficking. Militarizing the response Explaining how Ecuador became the epicenter of drug gang violence is one thing. Trying to find a way out for the country now is another. Across Latin America, countries have employed different models to counter organized crime, with varying degrees of success. Colombia, with extensive U.S. assistance, transformed its military and police and went to war with the cartels. The strategy somewhat successfully dismantled organized crime groups in the country, even if it failed to halt drug trafficking itself or lower the high levels of violence in Colombia. Mexican authorities have tried a different approach and have been reluctant to confront the country’s drug cartels head-on. Instead, Mexico has employed a more hands-off approach, allowing drug gangs to essentially govern their states – the state of Sinaloa is run largely by the cartel that shares its name. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has touted this “hugs not bullets” approach, but under it the power of the cartels has only grown. And then there is the Salvadoran model. For many years, El Salvador suffered from organized crime, with the Maras gang behind much of the country’s violence. Then in 2019 the electorate voted in Nayib Bukele on a law-and-order platform. Since then, he has militarized the country, adopted draconian security measures and jailed some 72,000 alleged gang members, often without due process. As a result, El Salvador is now perceived as one of the safest places in Latin America. This has been achieved at the expense of human rights, critics say. But, nonetheless, Bukele’s methods have enormous popular appeal. Path of El Salvador With an unprecedented wave of violence in Ecuador, it looks like President Noboa is looking to take his country down the same path as El Salvador. He has ordered the Ecuadorian military to “neutralize” the criminal gangs that operate in the country. Whether the approach will work is another matter; Ecuador is in a weaker position than El Salvador. Whereas many of the gangs were imported into El Salvador – many members of Maras had been deported from the U.S. – in Ecuador, they are homegrown and have become more sophisticated. Further, Noboa – despite taking office in December – has only 15 months of his presidency left before a general election takes place in May 2025. Yet, the adoption of Bukele’s methods might be seen as an election winner. Like in El Salvador, the majority of Ecuador’s citizens appear ready for an iron fist approach to counter the gangs – even at the expense of some civil liberties. If you speak to the average Ecuadorian, many would no doubt tell you that talk of human rights violations is bogus at a time when they live under the fear of being murdered simply by leaving their homes. As one man told The Associated Press in the aftermath of Jan. 9’s violence, the government needs to employ “a firmer hand, to have no mercy, no tolerance or (respect for) the human rights of criminals.”

A wave of violence, neoliberalism and drug trafficking Ecuador has been grappling with a profound crisis marked by heightened insecurity, exacerbated by the implementation of neoliberal policies and widespread impoverishment over the past few years. The looming threat of a quasi-permanent state of conflict, at least until the upcoming elections, coupled with a concerning trend towards creeping authoritarianism, while not yet institutionalized, casts a shadow over the current state of affairs. “By associating the presentation of meat to a dog with a bell sound for a certain number of times, eventually the bell sound alone will determine salivation in the dog.” - Pavlov's experiment There is much neuropolitics in the unraveling of the most recent events in Ecuador, with the worsening internal crisis and the draconian responses decided by President Daniel Noboa. There is the neuropolitics of terror, there is neuropolitics in the performance anxiety of a newly elected president who is confronted with a situation, already clear from the outset, that threatens to undermine his eventual future election. And there is much psychopolitics in a country that cannot shake off its visceral hatred of the years of the "Revolucion Ciudadana" on the one hand or its unconditional love for its father Rafael Correa on the other. And who inevitably falls back "like Pavlov's dog," into electoral choices that favor the country's economic elites in the belief that they are choosing the lesser evil. And there is a country exhausted by impoverishment, marginalization, viral weakening of the state apparatuses. And on the other side, again, overseas, there is a kind of Pavlovian reflex that a civil war, or a coup, is going on in Ecuador today. A hell on Earth, in short. A Pavlovian reflex that seems to hide a sort of latent "Orientalism" that still permeates the reading of events on this continent on the other side of the ocean. It will therefore be necessary to use the classic Occam's razor, to try to debunk the facts, news, and interpretations and get to the grain of things. The grain of things is so called. Ecuador has been experiencing for some years now an overt situation of increasing insecurity brought about by the penetration of as many as 22 drug trafficking gangs (Colombian, or affiliated with the Mexican cartels of Jalisco - Nueva Generación and Sinaloa, assisted by Albanian gangs present on the country's coast, which also suggests connections with the Calabrian "ndrangheta") mostly in the coastal regions. The homicide rate is among the highest in Latin America. Regions such as Esmeraldas - with an overwhelming majority of Afro population, which has always been marginalized and impoverished, or Guayas, in one way or another, are fertile or strategically relevant terrain for cocaine routes. The former due to the great availability of cheap "labor," "gatilleros" they call them, notably suburban boys left to their own devices, victims of a historical fate that marginalizes them, who for a fistful of dollars receive a gun and simply pull the trigger. Or they go to extort bribes, "vaccinations," from traders or families. The latter for the important port of Guayaquil, territory to be controlled to export drugs to the United States and Europe, often inside banana containers, as happened in a recent large seizure at the port of Gioia Tauro, Calabria, Italy. The penetration of narcos gangs into Ecuador undergoes a paradoxical acceleration with the peace process in Colombia when border areas "controlled" by the FARC are abandoned and left prey to new paramilitary formations or the coca-producing gangs. Ecuador thus finds itself between two producing regions such as Colombia and Peru, with porous borders, small and large ports from which to ship cargoes, a social fabric torn apart by years and years of neoliberal policies, an economy centered almost exclusively on an extractivist model that leaves large swaths of the population impoverished (and which is, after all, the "good" face of that of the narco-economies), a society ridden with enormous inequalities, first and foremost in urban areas, informal labor markets, and rampant corruption in state apparatuses. A dollarized economy that also makes money laundering easier, and further backed up by widespread illegal gold mining. What better combination for the narco-traffickers to make it the place for processing and shipping their goods? There is a strong correlation between the application of the IMF's neoliberal "shock doctrine," and its social, political and economic consequences, and the spread of organized crime. A correlation that calls for a indepth analysis of the root causes causes of what can be considered a "polycrisis" that runs through the small Andean country, certainly not used to situations such as that experienced in the past in Colombia or currently in Mexico. A polycrisis that is evident by analyzing in filigree the events of the last six months. Let us rewind the tape to August of last year. Riots have been igniting in prisons for some time. Gang clashes, often aided by the connivance of prison authorities (how else would one explain the presence of weapons and explosives used in the riots?) rage with unprecedented brutality. The prison problem stems from widespread pan-penalism in state apparatuses and an essentially punitive and deeply patriarchal view of retribution, and one that has disproportionately increased the type of crimes for which people go to jail (even for driving without a license). And by the construction in 2014 of three maximum security prisons in which narcos are locked up, creating the conditions for their transformation into command centers and theaters of internal wars among them. The presidential election campaign, convened prematurely following then-President Lasso's decision to dissolve parliament recurring to the mechanism of "muerte cruzada" and go to the polls to avoid impeachment proceedings for corruption, is actually dominated by the issue of security. Close to the opening of the polls, there comes the knockout blow that will determine the election outcome. First the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a champion of the fight against corruption, killed in Quito at a campaign event, few weeks after Augustin Intriago, the mayor of Manta, another port city, a territory in the hands of gangs like others on the coast. In the days that followed, the hitherto minor figure of the coastal candidate, an expression of local and national oligarchies - the same ones that had supported Lasso at the time - emerged in the polls. A young man unknown to most, a sort of electora underdog, Daniel Noboa, son of "Alvarito" great tycoon of the banana industry, a permanent candidate for president, and grandson of Isabel a Guayaquil’s wealthiest real estate entrepreneur. In the runoff Noboa wins against the Revolucion Ciudadana candidate, Luisa Gonzales, and immediately makes of security his priority. He faces a very complex scenario. A Congress in which on paper it does not enjoy a majority (although it will later vote by a majority for the first economic measures and the state of internal armed conflict also by virtue of a pact with important sectors of the oppositions), the overwhelming majority of territories controlled by opposition parties (Revolucion Ciudadana and Pachakutik, the reference party of the powerful CONAIE, Confederation of Indigenous Organizations of Ecuador). In the background is the important victory in the national referendum against oil extraction in the Yasuni, which foreshadows the existence of a social and ecological movement far stronger than electoral numbers. In short, Noboa appears from the outset to be a kind of lame duck who will experience a situation, to return to the neuropolitics mentioned above, of a real post-electoral stress disorder, squeezed between the urgency of giving strong and impactful signals to counter organized crime and that of responding in the short time of his term (new elections are due for mid 2025), to the interests of the lobbies to which he refers. Tertium non datur, even if that tertium is represented by the overwhelming majority of the country, already affected by the pandemic. And it is precisely there, in that "tertium," "from below," Uruguayan sociologist Raul Zibechi would say, that decision makers should start to reconstruct a plausible hypothesis of a country capable of another future. It is that tertium to which the country's resources should be devoted, young people and adolescents left alone and in the grip of criminal gangs, with fathers and mothers migrating out of desperation, crossing the Isthmus of Darien on foot to try to get to the United States. So even before he takes office, Noboa finds himself making some pre-government reshuffles, launches a security plan, "Phoenix," then decides to get the inconvenient vice president, a great Vox sympathizer, out of the way by sending her to Israel with the assignment of "special envoy" for peace. And he gets to work. A few weeks go by and the "Metastasis" scandal explodes, proof of how far the narcos have managed to penetrate the judicial sector, squeezed between corruption and death threats. In the meantime, the president begins to set his economic agenda by presenting laws aimed mainly at flexibilizing the labor market, creating free-trade, tax-free zones that coincide with the large estates and plantations of the agribusiness tycoons, announcing the removal of fuel subsidies, the main detonant of last year's indigenous uprising, brutally suppressed by the Lasso government. A "ley economica" that would create great resistance in the country, and which responds, along with the others, to the need to secure support from the International Monetary Fund. In parallel, funds to local authorities are reduced, the security department under his direct command is even closed. A tax "amnesty" for the highest incomes is announced. Cases of corruption in the security apparatus follow one another. Noboa prepares a package of legislative proposals and amendments to the Constitution that would allow the police and army to have a free hand and enjoy total immunity, which in fact is already the case thanks to the decrees issued by Lasso, who several times resorted, in vain, to the state of emergency. Nothing new then. He then attempts the popular plebiscite card a few months before the new election deadline. To the first 11 referendum questions announced, it then adds others, even including issues that only partly have to do with the issue of security. These include the opening of casinos, or measures to ease foreign direct investments. Proposals that a leading constitutionalist and former member of the Constitutional Court, Ramiro Avila Santamaria, defined as unconstitutional or unfounded. The decision is now up to the Court. Then comes the sensational news of the escape from prison in Guayaquil of one of the leaders of the Choneros gang, alias "Fito," allegedly occurring as early as Christmas, and of another leader of the "Lobos" apparently implicated in the murder of Villavicencio. A severe blow to the government's credibility to which Noboa responds with yet another declaration of a state of emergency, resulting in a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., a decision to have the army assist the police in public order operations, and the restriction of the right of assembly and the inviolability of the home. The narcos' response is immediate: new riots in prisons, attacks on some police stations, and the "raid" - the details of which have yet to be fully clarified - of a commando breaking into a live broadcast of a Guayaquil television station. A blow to the heart of his main electorate. Fact of the matter is that within a handful of hours of the blitz a new decree is issued in which the President - for the first time in the country's history - declares a state of internal armed conflict, that would be fought by the army, and recognizing the 22 gangs as "belligerent" parties. The crisis thus shifts from being a matter of public order to one of actual war, governed by international humanitarian law, such as the Geneva convention. Upon the announcement of the measure, the country goes into panic. Classes are suspended and will remain in online modality for several days, the evacuation of public buildings is ordered, and contingents of soldiers are dispatched to guard sensitive targets. The president locks himself up in the Carondelet Palace with senior state officials to decide what to do. After a few hours, military big brass in full uniform appear in front of the cameras, explaining the situation to the country and giving the line. A coup? There goes the first Pavlovian reflex. And yet no, Decree 111 declaring a state of "internal armed conflict" is overwhelmingly approved by Congress, even by the leftist opposition parties that had from the outset given declaration in favor of national unity. Indeed the main concern is that of not appearing as those who throw up their hands in the face of organized crime, a tasty opportunity for opposing parties in the upcoming 2025 presidential and parliamentary elections. A civil war? Not even, since we are not faced with organizations structured in paramilitary form, nor are we faced with an armed conflict on a national scale, but rather with public order operations "with boots on the ground" in well-defined territories. The declaration of war is in fact a media coup for effect to create the conditions for a "national unity" and "war", in which a clear distribution of tasks is emerging. On the one hand, the military, which from now on takes command of public order operations, with the police at their service (something that creates quite many frictions) and which can thus reaffirm their role and their credibility before the people. It must be said that the presence of the military in the streets is - at least in the capital Quito - very sporadic, the effect appears to be mostly symbolic. On the contrary the situation is pretty different in prisons where the military can now intervene freely to suppress riots and free that hundred hostages still in the hands of the rioters. Or when launching raids or searches in the "hot" outskirts of crime-ridden cities. However, even in the symbolic also lurks the risk of a pervasive "securitization" of public space, resulting in the inhibition of every possible form of dissent or social conflict. Noboa was quick to declare that even those who do not take action against gangs, (by extension one could also interpret those who oppose his policies) could be considered "the enemy." And then, in that public space now controlled by the military, there is a clear risk that the real victims of repression will end up being those marginal and marginalized classes, guilty only of being such, or of having dark skin. The precedent of "false positives" in Colombia comes to mind, where the military, in order to demonstrate the success of their operations, displayed to the public corpses of poor people in guerrilla uniforms. The military thus takes over – de facto - the public space determining by default the direction in which the country will go. In parallel, the private space is taken care of by the president with new decree-laws presented invoking the need to raise funds for internal warfare, from raising VAT to 15 percent, to the liberalization of the energy sector, the rejection of the result of the public consultation on Yasuni in order to continue drilling to generate funds to support the “war”, to policies aimed at attracting foreign capital. In the background are two agreements on cooperation in the military and security sector with the United States signed months ago by Lasso providing for the albeit temporary presence of the military on the national territory. They are in a hurry in Washington, with the specter of Trumpian “America First” isolationism looming. No surprise that the Ecuadorean Constitutional Court ruled that no approval by Congress is required. Then the free trade agreement with China, so far stalled by Congress, is due to go into effect soon. What about what exists and lives between public and private space? Movements? Civil society organizations? Theirs are the only expressions of criticism and dissent. CONAIE declares solidarity with the victims of the conflict, urges communities to organize indigenous guards to protect their territories (so far almost untouched by narco violence) and warns the government not to use the pretext of war to impose anti-popular measures. Its Amazonian organizations have recently taken to the streets to protest the construction of one of the two “Bukele-model” megaprisons in the Pastaza province. Environmental and indigenous movements are now denouncing Noboas’ decision against the ITT Yasuni’s decision. On the other hand, human rights organizations point the finger at the inappropriateness of the use of the military instrument, and the possible serious effects on human rights. The risks to the millions of Ecuadorians and Ecuadoreans working in informal economies or on temporary contracts are also stressed, as well as how the state of exception may increase cases of intra-family and gender-based violence. The rest is still a work in progress. The risk of a sort of permanent state of war that will characterize the country and the public debate at least until the next elections is just around the corner together with a creeping authoritarianism, certainly not at the institutional level, but surely in the state of affairs. Although the decrees of emergency and state of internal armed conflict have a duration of two months, it is highly unlikely that in that time the state will be able to declare victory. Since when you declare a war you must also be clear about when you are going to win it. Which at the moment is very vague and indefinite. Will it be when all Colombian or Venezuelan criminals are deported? Which is very difficult since the Constitution recognizes the human right to free mobility. Or when will they all be put in jail? Or when they will all be "shot down"? (numbers range from 30 to 50 thousand gang members), according to the term used by the mainstream press. This article was published originally in the Transnational Institute under the Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 licence

Introduction The year 2024 will present new windows of opportunity and obstacles to the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Below we analyze some trends in the region for 2024 in each of the three dimensions of sustainable development, to which we add consideration of governance elements to help understand a framework that does not look easy and in which critical decisions will have to be made for the future. The social dimension In 2024 we will have presidential elections in six countries in the region. Polls indicate that the incumbent party will remain in power in Mexico, where Claudia Sheinbaum could become the first woman president in its history; El Salvador will renew the mandate of Nayib Bukele despite doubts about the constitutionality of his new candidacy. In Uruguay and the Dominican Republic, where Luis Lacalle Pou and Luis Abinader will seek to renew their mandates, the high levels of approval of their administrations point to a possible reelection. At the other extreme, polls point to a possible defeat of the ruling party in Panama, where former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) leads in voting intentions despite having been convicted in 2023 for a corruption and money laundering case, a sentence that is currently under appeal. In Venezuela, the only country on the list without a date for its electoral process, the controversies surrounding the government of Nicolás Maduro and the lack of transparency in information, added to the imprisonment of opposition leaders, prevent any analysis. The escalation towards an armed confrontation with Guyana over the border region of the Essequibo, rich in oil, minerals and gas, should be closely followed. The result of a long diplomatic and legal dispute between the two countries, its last chapter had taken place in 2018, when Guyana, with the backing of the current UN Secretary General, went to the International Court of Justice to request the reaffirmation of the international arbitration that fixed the border between the two countries in 1899. Maduro's government responded by ignoring the Court's authority to hear the case. Then, in 2020, the court declared itself competent to hear the case, but has not yet rendered its final judgment. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), almost absent from the regional political map in recent years, reappears to mediate between the two countries, the end of which is now uncertain. All these processes are framed in a high level of citizen distrust towards the political sector, accompanied by weakened democracies, as reflected in The Economist's Democracy Index 2022. On the other hand, the arrival of Javier Milei, a political outsider, to the presidency of Argentina raises questions about its future regional positioning and will have far-reaching regional effects with changes in alliances on sensitive issues, from support for regional environmental policies to the redesign of the country's insertion in international trade, with potential major impacts on the Southern Cone. All of the above, together with the low growth and economic difficulties described in the following section, pose challenges for accelerating regional trajectories of poverty reduction, the fight against labor informality and unemployment, and the implementation of public policies to promote equity and gender equality, among others. For these reasons, there will be more pressure on regional environmental resources, which could lead to new protests and social unrest. The economic dimension Implementing actions to promote sustainable development requires financial resources. LAC has long been a low-priority region for international cooperation and foreign investment is limited, so generating its own resources, in a context of global economic restrictions, is essential. The average projected growth for the region in 2024 is 1.5%, distributed by subregion as follows: the Caribbean (excluding Guyana, which is in a special situation due to its recent entry into the "club" of oil-exporting countries), 2.8%; Central America and Mexico, 2.1%; and South America, 1.2%. As a result, employment growth is expected to slow down. In an attempt to recover employment growth, the countries of the region seem to be turning to flexible monetary policies to increase exports. Countries such as Brazil, Chile and Peru, for example, reduced rates in the third quarter of 2023 and Colombia and Mexico are expected to do so at the beginning of 2024, but the slowdown in growth in countries such as the United States and China is resulting in lower demand for primary products, the main export of LAC countries, in international markets. In addition, there are deficiencies in infrastructure for the transportation of goods throughout the region, creating an obstacle to its export capacity. The possible fall in demand for basic goods is accompanied by a forecast that their prices will continue to fall in 2024, with the exception of energy commodities, which will increase pressure on the trade balances of LAC countries. In terms of minerals, the boost to the extractive industry could lead to foreign currency inflows in countries such as Argentina, Chile and Bolivia (the lithium triangle), although the uncertainty regarding the arrival of investments is due to doubts about economic and business policies in those countries and the growing public demand for the regulation of mining activity to reduce its effects on the environment. However, a boost to mineral processing activity to accompany its extraction could come from the global competition between China, the United States and the European Union, as the latter two seek to reduce China's global weight in mineral processing. Finally, it should be noted that the relocation of supply chains that followed the Covid-19 crisis will bring income to only a few LAC countries, such as Mexico and Panama. The environmental dimension Climate change is already being felt strongly in the region: the average temperature in LAC for 2021-2040 is expected to be about 1°C higher than in the period 1985-2014. At the same time, LAC is key to finding solutions to the challenges of climate change: it is home to 40% of the planet's biodiversity and more than 25% of its forests. The region also plays a central role in the sustainable production of food and energy, where more than 30% of the energy production matrix is made up of "green energies", a percentage that for some countries exceeds 90%, and an export profile that is closely linked to potentially polluting extractive activities. Although it contributes less than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, LAC causes damage whose cost already exceeds 2% of its combined annual GDP as a result of the worsening and greater recurrence of extreme weather and environmental catastrophes. The region is the second most vulnerable to natural disasters, which have affected approximately 190 million people since 2000. The expected climatic effects of the "El Niño" current in the region, with increases in rainfall in some sectors paired with droughts in others, will translate into differentiated opportunities and risks for different countries in the region in 2024. In perspective, Argentina and Paraguay could benefit from more rainfall that will benefit the crop, while Colombia and Central America will be exposed to droughts and the Caribbean to extreme weather effects. It will be precisely the intensity of the climatic extremes that "El Niño" reaches that will define its impact on the production of basic goods, energy generation and transportation, but in any case it could contribute to the inflationary pressures that already exist in LAC. A key issue for the region is what happens at the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Treaty on Climate Change (COP 28), where the aim is to establish a "Loss and Damage Fund" to address the costs of climate change and increase funding for climate change mitigation. However, the central concern of the region will be the adoption of a new "global goal on adaptation to climate change" to guide and finance the actions required to adapt to the changes that climate change has already produced, and to accompany the mitigation goal established in the Paris Agreement. Defining that goal and creating channels to finance its achievement is one of the most complex issues at COP 28 and it is uncertain what the outcome will be. Chile, together with Australia, have been designated as co-facilitators of this negotiation. At the same time, what happens at the COP and the discussions on climate and financial issues that will take place in 2024 should find LAC as a leader around the Bridgetown Initiative, presented by Barbados in 2022, to modify the international financial system and urgently curb climate change, combining two concerns of deep regional significance Governance of sustainable development In 2024, two countries in the region, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, are expected to adopt new national development strategies: In the case of Jamaica, the Medium-Term Socioeconomic Policy Framework 2021-2024 is coming to an end and work is already underway to prepare the document that will give it continuity. This framework guides the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the country's main national planning instrument, Vision 2030 Jamaica, and should ensure its alignment with the SDGs. In the Dominican Republic, the National Multi-Year Public Sector Plan 2021-2024 defines the country's development policies and their financing, along with international cooperation priorities. Brazil, for its part, will once again have its commission for the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs active as of December 2023, after it was deactivated by the Jair Bolsonaro administration and replaced by the current government. In addition, the following countries in the region will submit Voluntary National Reports on SDG implementation: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras and Peru. It is possible, however, that the position of the recently elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, against the 2030 Agenda, will lead the country to withdraw its offer. On the other hand, in 2024 the sixth forum of Latin American and Caribbean countries will be held in the city of Santiago de Chile, a meeting that will be of special importance for the region given that it will not only serve, as it traditionally does, as a regional preparatory meeting for the follow-up and evaluation process of the 2030 Agenda that concludes at the United Nations High Level Political Forum, but will also be a key moment in the regional path towards the Summit of the Future, which will meet in New York in September 2024. It is important to keep in mind that next year will find LAC countries and officials occupying positions of high capacity to influence global debates on the future of multilateralism: -The presidency of the UN General Assembly is held by Trinidad and Tobago, and that of the Economic and Social Council is held by Chile. -Brazil will chair the G21. -Colombia will host the World Data Forum. -Uruguay's Felipe Paullier has been appointed as the first Under-Secretary-General for Youth Affairs in the history of the UN. -The government of Mexico will be working with its Spanish counterpart in preparation for the Fourth United Nations -Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in 2025. In addition, there is growing activity surrounding the appointment of the person who will succeed the current UN Secretary General. In accordance with the practice of geographical rotation in the exercise of this responsibility, a person from LAC would occupy the position. However, Eastern Europe has pointed out that, in its opinion, its turn was "skipped", given that it was the Secretary General of the organization when Guterres, from Western Europe, was appointed for his first term. Should LAC's position prevail over that of Eastern Europe, we may see the first bids for candidates for the post in 2024. The pressure to have a woman head the UN for the first time in history was scorned when the current Secretary General was chosen, but it is unlikely that the same thing will happen again. Although it is too early to advance names, the current Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, appears to be an unavoidable reference, although there are several candidates in the running.

Last Sunday, Chile made a U-turn in constitutional matters, that is to say, after four years of experimentation and going to the polls five times, it went back to square one. By 55.8% against 44.2%, citizens said no to the second constitutional proposal presented to them in little more than a year. In September 2022, the text of the first Convention had been rejected by 61.8%, with only 38% support. These are the six keys to understand the result: 1.- A process that started badly Last Sunday, the constituent process that began in November 2019 under the blackmail of violence came to an end. As a result of the outbreak that occurred in October of that year, the government of former President Piñera promoted a transversal agreement in Congress that began the replacement of the Constitution drafted during the Pinochet dictatorship, which had been extensively reformed in democracy. In fact, the last major reform to that text was in 2005 during the government of former President Lagos. The changes made there were so important that Lagos introduced a norm to replace Pinochet's signature and, when he promulgated the new text, he said that Chile finally had a fully democratic Constitution. Many say that if a plebiscite had been held there, the constitutional issue would probably have been settled. It was not done and, a few years later, the most extreme left began to demand a constituent assembly to draft a new Constitution made fully democratic. 2. The Constitution was never the problem, nor the solution. The first constitutional proposal was submitted to a plebiscite on September 4, 2022. The extreme left had the votes to draft a text as they wished and so they did. They put into it their refoundational political project, which destroyed liberal democracy, divided the Chilean nation, asphyxiated individual freedom, eliminated controls to political power and put an end to equality before the law. President Boric's government was its main promoter, and the text was rejected by a majority not only by the right but also by a large part of the center-left. Probably last Sunday's results can be explained by what happened there. Chileans, during the work of that convention and with the text proposed to them, understood that their problems were not constitutional as they had been led to believe for years. 3.- A hasty agreement Chile had approached the abyss and the triumph of the rejection of that first text was celebrated transversally by the democratic forces and by the citizens, who perhaps at one point agreed with a new Constitution, but not with a new country invented from scratch. A few days after that plebiscite, the opposition rushed to reach an agreement with the ruling party to initiate a second constituent process. It is true that this time limits were set to avoid the excesses of the first one, but the truth is that it was never understood that everything had to start all over again. It would have been more reasonable to redirect the constituent issue in the National Congress from where it should never have left. A Council was elected in which this time the Republican Party had a majority, the only one that left the agreement. That is to say, the people elected a majority of those who did not want to insist on the elaboration of a new proposal. Last Sunday, citizens were fed up with politicians from different parties who insisted, over and over again, that the constitutional issue was the problem. People felt, and rightly so, that they had already voted and never agreed with this second process. 4.- A plebiscite without drama Unlike last September's plebiscite in which Chile's democratic destiny was at stake, last Sunday people did not see drama or epic in what was being voted. That is to say, either a new text was approved, which for some updated and improved the current one (for the left it was a step backwards), or the same one was continued. After decades of attacks to the current Constitution, blaming it for all the injustices and claiming that they could not govern with it, the left arrived at last Sunday's plebiscite sunk in indignity. During the campaign, they went from talking about "Pinochet's Constitution" to "Ricardo Lagos' Constitution" and even declared to feel comfortable with it. 5.Government, relief rather than triumph Nobody would have imagined that this whole process would end with a leftist Government sleeping relieved because the current Constitution is still in force. The triumph of the proposed new Constitution would have meant its third consecutive electoral defeat. The first one was to the text of the Convention last year; the second one, in the election of councilors for the new process. A third one would have meant a very hard blow for a Government with scarce support and wide levels of popular rejection. On the other hand, there are no more excuses. Chile's most serious problems are not constitutional and the citizens seem tired of shouting without anyone listening to them. The Government, relieved, but with nothing to celebrate, must face a serious corruption scandal that has been installed at the doors of La Moneda; a country where nobody feels safe and authorities that lack credibility to face violence; a serious economic stagnation; an imminent crisis in the health system; and also face an education without an agenda and with thousands of children paying the costs of the bad reforms pushed and approved by those who govern today. 6.- Future of the opposition The right wing and the political forces of the center united to campaign in favor of this second constitutional proposal. Sunday's defeat does not change too much the configuration within the opposition. José Antonio Kast, former presidential candidate and leader of the Republican Party, who had the majority in this new constitutional council, obtains, in the end, the same percentage as in the last presidential second round. It is not enough for him to win, but he does not regress in popular support. And Republicans added to Chile Vamos (center-right coalition) maintain, practically, the same votes they obtained in the election of councilors. That is to say, the scenario remains open for the next presidential elections without any figure being irremediably damaged nor any particularly strengthened. President Boric, on Sunday night, wanted to take advantage of the result by forcing a wrong interpretation. He pointed out that people were asking for agreements and, therefore, he was calling the opposition to join his pension and tax reforms. The result of the plebiscite can be interpreted just the opposite, as the death of the last great political agreement, hasty, made with the people's back turned. That is to say, the Government hopes that the right wing has not learned anything from what happened; that to a bad constitutional agreement, which the people never supported, it will now add votes for a lousy tax and pension agreement. The right wing should devote itself to building a broad and coherent political project to solve the problems and not to aggravate them. Citizens seem to be fed up with ministers and parliamentarians signing agreements only because it suits them in the photo or they are uncomfortable to subtract themselves from it. Today there are many oppositions in Chile and it is essential that they have their own profile so that more citizens feel represented by them. It is necessary to add up and for that unity must be taken care of. It is not possible to disqualify them one day and the next morning try to close pacts with them. The opposition must be proportional to the damage that this Government is causing and, at the same time, it must quickly turn the page of the constitutional issue to build a recognizable political alternative. One cannot expect to win just because of how badly the left in power is doing. That is not enough. In what happened on Sunday there is also something to learn from that.

Each week we encounter mouthwatering policies implemented by the newly elected libertarian president of Argentina Javier Milei. He has the libertarian community in awe. His arrival to politics with an openly antisystem discourse shook not only the local scene in Argentina but also the rest of the world. But how? The respective libertarian parties in each country barely get enough votes to even appear on the main grid on election night! There are numerous reasons as to why this may be. We libertarians know ourselves well and no one with a minimum of self-criticism is surprised that our current situation in party politics is such. While political culture differs by country, our internal ideological discussions as libertarians are the same. While there’s no formula for liberty, one may find Milei’s Rothbardian pattern interesting. In a world sunk in destructionist trends, many voices of reason emerge. Are any of them following these same steps? Let’s now look at some factors that led Javier Milei to the presidency. Understanding of the Market Economics has been the main problem in Argentina for almost its entire history. Crisis after crisis has kept the country stagnant, and the application of different recipes, even with new parties in power, didn’t seem to produce any results. That is why the public interest has gradually turned to economists for answers. Javier Milei understood that need. He published successful books, articles, and even had his own comedic theatrical play on economic affairs. His repeated appearances on television since 2015 were because he knew how to have channels make money. Whenever he popped up at a talk show, there was a peak in ratings. Everybody wanted him! Despite his eccentric appearance, yelling, and proliferated insults, he exuded a magnetism that filled the viewer with curiosity. Although other valuable libertarian economists were gaining prominence, no one equaled him. Without understanding everything he said, the public still perceived he wasn’t talking nonsense—his speech and arguments were logical and made sense. For instance, on his explanation on the illegitimacy of taxes, he immortalized the phrase, “Are you in favor of stealing?” And he proceeded to explain how taxes were forcibly extracted, just like in a robbery. He’d even conclude by referring to Lysander Spooner’s analogy: “At least the robber has more honor than the politician; he shows his face and risks his life!” Education As Murray Rothbard says in the last chapter of For a New Liberty, A prime and necessary condition for libertarian victory . . . is education: the persuasion and conversion of large numbers of people to the cause. Libertarians must, therefore, engage in hard thinking and scholarship, put forth theoretical and systematic books, articles, and journals, and engage in conferences and seminars. On the other hand, a mere elaboration of the theory will get nowhere if no one has ever heard of the books and articles; hence the need for publicity, slogans, student activism, lectures, radio, and TV spots, etc. Milei’s simplicity in explaining the libertarian philosophy and economic principles from an Austrian perspective made people learn. Watching the night talk show with Milei’s presence wasn’t just another moment of mind-numbing TV garbage: it became an eye-opening experience. Moreover, he used to always carry a book with him. Whether it was one of his own or Economics in One Lesson or The Fatal Conceit. At times he’s been seen with Chaos Theory or Defending the Undefendable. In each of his appearances one could write down several authors or book titles, which he’d also often share in social media. The mention of names such as Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, or Friedrich Hayek on prime time was not in vain. Genuine Followers Young people composed his main harvest of followers. Accustomed to growing up seeing the same people in power, and a not-so-different opposition, they found in Milei’s speech a flame of hope which illuminated a possible future with features similar to wealthy countries. Followers began to mention Milei in conversations with their peers, behaving like someone newly converted to a religion and wanting everyone to know. Countless users began to create content on libertarianism, from quotes, infographics, and videos spreading the ideas, which soon became very popular. That is how the demonization of the ideas of liberty and capitalism was lifted. Social Media These mentioned followers became key, especially during the elections. Their exceptional communication and research skills served to unmask, expose, and humiliate politicians and supporters 24/7. The tireless work was impressive. It took the form of memes, slogans, or trending topics. X’s importance as a free-speech platform was extraordinary, unlike during Milei’s 2021 campaign for Congress where his main supporters were banned on Twitter and came back each time with a new account. The political class had fallen behind. It had no chance in the virtual world, which had been taken over years ago by libertarians while they neglected the people. Despite Milei’s opposition using public funds to plaster the streets with their faces and paying for highly invasive and disturbing ads against him on social media, his organic and decentralized activists communicated his message unceasingly, resisted endless attacks, and discredited operations. Paradigm Shift The then-current government, whose banners were “the people” and the working class, in practice dedicated itself to multiplying poverty. They themselves lived like kings in total dissonance with the needs of the common people. Their main followers are composed of themselves and people who benefit from the state’s parasitism machinery: union leaders, government employees, corporate media, “artists” and “intellectuals.” The working people, increasingly distanced from those who claim to represent them, resonated with Milei’s ideas. Why? Because they carry civilization and progress upon their shoulders. The political class was losing credibility, and with it the elections, for not seeing this change replicating all over the world. Today the political class at a global level is using different motives to drive the structure of systematic stealing. Race, immigration, climate change, digital currency—you name it. These ideas have been implanted by the elites through prominent figures and the media, financed by public funds. The more radical their attempts, the more they demonstrate their desperation. We have the opportunity for what seems to be a new beginning in the world with a subtle comeback of the ideas upon which civilization rests. If Mises called the twentieth century the century of socialism, may we be able to call the twenty-first century the century of libertarianism.

A lot of saliva and lots of ink has been spent in recent days to criticize the behavior that President Lula da Silva has sustained on the international stage. In effect, even though one of the pillars of democratic rule of law, which is still in force in Brazil only due to Lula’s return to the presidency, is freedom of expression. Much of this criticism is grounded on a mistaken (or politicized) reading of the history of the country’s foreign policy, of what Lula actually did in his first two terms in office in the early 2000s, as well as what Lula is currently pursuing on the international stage. Brazil has historically supported multilateralism, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and the right of self-determination of all peoples. While Lula may have caused some controversy in recent statements, or even on some diplomatic initiatives, none of this contradicts Brazil’s tradition of defending universal principles while also making use of foreign policy to promote the country’s development and positioning. Even before regaining the presidential seat, Lula was praised for his defense of multilateral and cooperative ways to tackle the climate crisis at 2022’s COP-27 in Egypt. Much in the same way, as his new government took office in January 2023, Lula sought to revive the foreign policy that bore so many fruits during his first time in office. He did this by maintaining an ambitious agenda of international trips, which balanced meetings with traditional partners while expanding on projects linked to the so-called Southern agenda. His tours began in neighboring Argentina to attend the 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. This was followed by a visit to Washington, where he met Biden and jointly made a clear statement in defense of democratic values, which have been under threat in both countries in recent times. A few weeks later, Lula made a visit to China to deepen trade relations, but when there he also tried to promote a peace effort for Ukraine. This initiative did not yield results, something that more reflects the structural difficulties of today’s world rather than a misalignment of Lula’s foreign policy. Reproducing the great achievements of the so-called proud and activeforeign policy of 20 years ago, when Brazil reached an unprecedented level of relevance on the international scene, will be difficult. The world has changed, and Brazil has changed, generally in a negative sense. Liberal democracy faces a crisis as authoritarianism, and even (neo)fascism, present themselves as viable alternatives and political and ideological polarization are on the rise. It is in this rigidly fragmented and increasingly violent world where greater activism from Brazil is needed. Given its historical trajectory, economic weight, and diplomatic tradition, Brazil can serve as an interlocutor between the countries of the Western sphere, Latin America, the Russian-Asian bloc, and the so-called countries of the South. Lula’s international overtures are only likely to increase as it becomes ever more likely that Trump may return to the presidency in the US – while simultaneously the extreme right advances in Europe and xenophobic authoritarianism deepens in Russia, India, and China. During his first two terms in office, Lula did not strain relations with traditional partners, such as the USA and Europe. Rather, he sought to expand the range of connections with new countries, particularly those that shared Brazil’s history of colonialism and unfair treatment from established powers. This stance does not contradict what Brazil has sought to do since at least the beginning of the 1960s. Under very different types of political regimes, Brazil’s foreign policy has consistently sought to establish new global collaborations with an ever-larger number of nations so that Brazil’s weight within the international realm could be expanded. All of this was done without risking relations with powerful allies. Likewise, Brazil’s international actions recurrently sought to democratize, or at least expand, the spheres of international deliberation so that they could effectively become representative and legitimate multilateral spaces. Sustaining this course of foreign policy is more challenging in today’s global context. With multiple actors competing for hegemony, a country like Brazil may be able to bargain for even greater gains within the many ongoing disputes. But no success will be achieved if pundits and critics continue to be inspired by dogmatic or ideological positions, refusing to understand the rising international relevance of Brazil and Lula’s unique role in promoting dialogue and inclusion in an ever-more divided world.

Argentina’s Javier Milei is racking up some solid wins, with the fiscal basket case seeing its first monthly budget surplus in 12 years. Apparently, it took Milei just nine and a half weeks to balance a budget that was projected at 5% of GDP under the previous government. In US terms, he turned a 1.2 trillion-dollar annual deficit into a 400 billion surplus. In 9 and a half weeks. How did he do it? Easy: he cut a host of central government agency budgets by 50% while slashing crony contracts and activist handouts. For perspective, if you cut the entirety of Washington's budget by 50%, you'd save a fast 3 trillion dollars and start paying off the national debt. It turns out it can be done, and the world doesn't collapse into chaos.    Milei Making Fast Progress Deficits aren’t the only win Milei's logged. He’s slashed crony regulation, got rid of currency controls, and recently slashed rent prices by removing controls — that actually led to a doubling of apartments for rent in Buenos Aires, slashing rent costs. Unfortunately, it's not all smooth sailing: a bill to privatize corrupt state-owned companies — to effectively de-Soviet the Argentine economy — was blocked by the socialist opposition who serve the government unions who would lose their jobs. Meanwhile, a major Milei reform to make it a lot easier to hire people but would hurt unions was struck down by the high court, which said it must go through Congress. Having said that, for the average Argentinian, these are deckchairs on the Titanic compared to the elephant in the economy: Argentina's hyperinflation. Just last week, the monthly inflation figure came in at 20.6% — on the month. That was a lot better than the outgoing government, but it still left year-on-year inflation at 254%. Why so high? Partly because Milei had to free up the exchange rate to smooth the path to dollarization — for Argentina adopting the US dollar instead of the local confetti. But mostly because the rivers of money printed by the previous socialists continue to run through the battered ruins they left of Argentina's economy. After all, Milei's only been in office for two months.  Argentina’s Dollarization Milei's reforms will continue to be trench warfare. But his inflation progress is going to be key to retaining support. He just notched a big win with the deficit, but it only stops the bleeding — the patient is still on life support. To fully kill Argentina's hyperinflation, Milei would need to make real progress on the dollarization — or, dare we dream, a gold standard. On dollarization, that would involve announcing a months-long window for peso assets to be revalued in dollars. He's been preparing the groundwork so far — the currency controls and deficits are a big help. And he's surely motivated to do it since dollarization in other countries like did it like Ecuador has 90% public support. But it is a complicated process, and if done badly, he'll be dead in the water. The stakes are high. And not just for Argentina: If Milei succeeds, he'll be a model for radically shrinking government in other countries in Latin America, in the rest of the world, and even for our spineless goblins in Washington. Originally published at profstonge.com.

In September 2015, the delegations of the 150 presidents participating in the Sustainable Development Summit were part of the 193 States preparing to adopt the outcome document of this meeting. This meeting represented the end of the most participatory negotiation process in the history of the United Nations: the adoption of the 2030 Agenda. The sense of optimism and of moving towards a common goal was palpable. Eight years later, the progress of the 2030 Agenda has fallen far short of expectations. Unfulfilled promises, lack of financing, the health crisis generated by COVID-19, the recent wars, and the global economy that has faced first recessionary and then inflationary pressures all have made the idea of finding common solutions to the problems afflicting the world lose momentum. Misinformation on the 2030 Agenda On this fertile soil, conspiracy theories sprout that see multilateralism as the origin of today’s problems. The 2030 Agenda is, in many cases, at the center of these distorted visions. Three conspiracy theories are being raised against the main global sustainable development agenda. Theory of the “New World Order”: This theory is based on the idea that an elite (Bilderberg Club style) formed by a small group of the most powerful people in the world governs the destinies of the planet for their benefit. The “Great Reboot” theory was proposed in Davos after the pandemic, and with the UN’s “build back better” vision, the theory focuses on the economic dimension. It suggests an orchestrated plan by the most powerful countries to appropriate all the world’s wealth. They claim the intentional creation of a pandemic to initiate their plan. “Trickle-down communism” theory: After the fall of the Soviet Union – and knowing that communism could never take over the West – the “left” began a worldwide campaign to slowly insert its ideas into Western societies so that by the time the plan was discovered, the West would have embraced the communist ideal without realizing it. All three conspiracies arrive at the same result: the 2030 Agenda is creating a group (an economic elite, a group of powerful countries, or international communism) aiming to appropriate the world’s wealth. These stories contradict reality and seek to misinform about this milestone for international cooperation, which, despite the difficulty of addressing it, is a renewal of the concept of international development. The disinformation of the 2030 Agenda happens, in most cases, through social networks, and their expressions claim, for example, that this is oriented to Forcing citizens to eat insects instead of meat. Confine the world’s population to neighborhoods where they cannot leave without permission under “15-minute cities”. Feminize men to reduce the world population. Despite the absurdity of the “arguments,” they have served as a basis for those who seek to debate the value of the 2030 Agenda in Latin America. José Luis Chilavert, former goalkeeper of the Paraguayan national soccer team, became a candidate for president of his country in the 2023 elections. He obtained 0.7% of the votes but explained his decision: “I got into politics to fight against Agenda 2030. They want to destroy us.” Sandra Torres, three-time presidential candidate for the Partido Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE by its acronym in Spanish) party, said in a video in the 2023 election campaign: “I will never let them impose an international agenda on us. We Guatemalans will set Guatemala’s agenda. I believe in life, family, and religious freedom. No to Agenda 2030.” In Chile, Congressman Cristóbal Urruticoechea Ríos, with an active mandate until 2026, stated in his country’s congress that “the dehumanization of human beings and the humanization of animals, the destruction of language, the destruction of the middle classes, the liquidation of the sovereignty of nations, the attack on families, life and roots. This is part of the 2030 Agenda.” After Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in the last Brazilian elections, his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, became the face of the Liberal Party. His position is forceful: “The more we fight against Agenda 2030, the greater our electoral success will be.” In Costa Rica, New Republic deputy David Segura said in a speech at the chamber that the 2030 Agenda was adopted to “confuse people and, of course, to impose little by little the great modern enemy of all families, which is the nefarious gender ideology,” and then added that Agenda 2030 “opens the door to promote nothing more and nothing less than abortion, financed by international capital giants that pursue their interests, which are far from being yours, mine.” At the level of presidents we have Nayib Bukele, recently reelected to govern El Salvador, maintains a cautious position: “On the issue of Agenda 2030, I am very suspicious of this type of international agendas of the UN, the World Economic Forum, or wherever they come from and their intentions”. Although undoubtedly, the greatest exponent of conspiracy theories in the region is Javier Milei, current president of Argentina, who, during his campaign, stated, “We are not going to adhere to Agenda 2030. We do not adhere to cultural Marxism. We do not adhere to decadence” (read in Spanish), and, already in office, he explained that he was traveling to the Davos Forum with the aim of “planting the ideas of freedom in a forum that is contaminated with the socialist agenda 2030 that will only bring misery to the world”. With such positions, one of the few well-established consensuses in the region during the last 10 years is cracking. The fact that the discussion is settled will be a setback that cannot be allowed. It is up to Latin America’s leaders to armor their support for the 2030 Agenda by being clearer in their positions and more active than before in their policies to implement the SDGs. The Regional Forum on Sustainable Development must make a strong statement in that direction. When the UN Secretary-General stated that we are facing a “breakdown or breakthrough” dilemma, it seemed a rhetorical question. For Latin America, it is no longer so.

Good afternoon everyone, if we’re talking about exploring opportunities, clearly one would have to address growth issues. The problem is that, when one encounters a deeply unbalanced macro situation, growing becomes very difficult, almost I would say impossible. And especially when for many years, relative prices have been distorted and the economy has been put in an imbalanced situation, trying to live in a sort of permanent boom, when the boom comes it’s much more violent. That is why when the correction of relative prices is carried out, it generates a contraction of activity and employment, and the more violent and prolonged the process of overstimulating the economy, the stronger the contraction becomes. In that sense, Argentina has lived – for more than 20 years – under a wild populist regime, which has led to the destruction of capital, the destruction of productivity, which is why we are in an absolute miserable situation. Yes, because populism is not free; wages, in dollars, on average, in the 1990s, were $1,800 and if you adjusted for American inflation that would imply that Argentinian wages, on average, should be $3,000, something like 3 million pesos. And today, luckily, if we exaggerate and become very optimistic, we could say they are $600, which is false because they are lower. This means that Argentinians in this populist adventure have lost 80% of our income, that is the real catastrophe. The consequence of this is that we have more than 50% in poverty and 10% in extreme poverty, or a little more as well. This means that the country, which produces food for 400 million people and has a tax burden on the food production sector of 70%, meaning that the State takes the food from 280 million people, and has 5,000,000 Argentinians who do not have enough to eat, which is the real catastrophe. But it is not only a catastrophe in terms of growth, well-being, employment, and wages, but the inheritance was very complicated, the inheritance we received. I am going to describe the inheritance we received and the measures we have been taking during these first 100 days of government, and it’s not to mourn it, because the reality is that if there was something that became clear with “the Chief”is that we truly managed to win the elections it was because we were truly in a disastrous situation, because for a libertarian liberal, who openly says it, to come to power, it is precisely because the situation was not going to be an easy one. That means they were going to leave us in a very, very difficult situation, because otherwise the populists would continue to win. And for people to wake up the way they are doing, evidently it had to be a very complicated situation. So, I would almost say, we were always prepared to receive this hot potato, and you can see that, because if we hadn’t taken quick measures, we would have blown up several times already. Specifically, when studying, you review the literature on early crisis indicators, when you have twin deficits, by 4 points of GDP, it's a yellow alert; if you have 8 points of GDP it's not only a red alert, but you're going to take a significant hit. We inherited twin deficits of 17 points of GDP, just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the disaster we received. In other words, the size of the hit was going to be colossal; basically, the inheritance had the worst of the three worst crises in Argentina. It had a monetary imbalance worse than what we had before the "Rodrigazo" in 1975; we had an imbalance in the Central Bank's balance worse than what Alfonsín had at the beginning of 1989, which ended in hyperinflation, and worse social indicators than in 2001, that is, before the crisis of 2002. In other words, literally, it was the sum of all evils. In that sense, that twin deficit, of 7 points of GDP, was composed mainly of a 15-point consolidated fiscal deficit. Of those 15 points, 5 corresponded to the Treasury and 10 corresponded to the Central Bank. Furthermore, to give you an idea of the magnitude of the disaster we received, basically, although during the entire previous government, monetary issuance was used to finance the fiscal imbalance, by 28 points of GDP. Of those 28 points, 13 took place in the last year; not a minor issue if you think about it because the monetary base is already - today - 2.6 of GDP, meaning they left behind a quintupling of prices, and if you also look at the Central Bank's balance sheet having holdings in Leliqs, ranging from 30 to 90 days, meaning 30, 60, and 90 days, all converted into overnight loans, which means there was the possibility of multiplying the money supply by 4 in a day. In that context, moreover, during the first week of December, prices were rising by 1% daily, which means that in annual terms, it is 3700% inflation. If it stopped in the first two weeks, that would be 7500% annually, and if you look at what wholesale inflation was in December, which was 54%, that annualized is 17,000%. So, facing hyperinflation, if the economy had already entered a recessionary path in the second and third quarters last year but was fueled by a lot of monetary issuances to try to force an electoral outcome that did not happen, and in that context, it was essential to avoid hyperinflation. But to avoid hyperinflation, it was necessary to implement a very tough stabilization program, a program that we had and that we were only able to announce on the third day, basically because we had the issue of appointments at the Central Bank. And basically, it had the three fundamental elements that any stabilization program has, which were fiscal adjustment, exchange rate correction, and the definition of a new monetary policy. In that sense, for us, the key was to end monetary issuance so that there would be no monetary validation of the price increases, and that it would not escalate and generate hyperinflation. In that sense, along with the devaluation, which was made because basically all we did was bring the exchange rate to the market exchange rate, adjusted by the PAIS Tax, and in that context, on the fiscal front, we decided to adopt what is called a zero-deficit policy. But a true zero deficit, not a lie, meaning a zero deficit in the line of financial result, that is, after paying interests. This is very important because if we achieve a zero deficit in the financial line, it means that the debt no longer grows. And if the debt does not grow anymore, the debt-to-GDP ratio does not increase more, and therefore one becomes temporarily solvent, and the consequence of this is that the PAIS Tax begins to fall, and the interest rate will decrease. Thus, the interest rate regains its essential function, which is to be a mechanism of inter-temporal coordination and for the growth process to be related precisely to the interest rate, the natural interest rate, that is, the market rate, not the rate that a bureaucrat comes up with by meddling from the Central Bank. I clarify to make it clear, this idea of being tinkering... Once, I remember telling someone: "you are worse than Moreno" because Moreno controlled the prices of today, but you want to control the interest rate, which means you want to control the prices of today and the future. Why? Because the interest rate is the relative price of present goods over future goods. So, this would be much more complicated. So, we also began a process of cleaning up the Central Bank's balance sheet, and the reality is that we believed and aimed to achieve a zero deficit by 2024, and we were truly and absolutely committed to carrying out a fiscal adjustment, which obviously involves a lot of chainsaw and a lot of blender, and if we wanted to do it quickly, we had to use both. There is a lot of blender and much more, actually, of chainsaw because we eliminated public works outright, something of which I am deeply proud, considering that public works are a major source of corruption and theft, which I imagine all decent people should oppose. (APPLAUSE). On the other hand, we also completely eliminated discretionary transfers to the provinces; we also laid off 50,000 public employees, not only that but we also terminated contracts, and you see, now, more contracts are being terminated, and 70,000 contracts will be terminated. We also eliminated 200,000 social programs, irregularly delivered, and at no time did we neglect social policy because – in the midst of it all – we doubled the AUH; we doubled the Food Card; we tripled assistance in the One Thousand Days Plan, that is, for pregnant women, and not only that, but we also quadrupled assistance for school supplies and created a mechanism for middle-income families, who attend low-cost private schools, to have a support mechanism so that the children wouldn't drop out of school, which they attended, and not have to suffer the shock of changing schools, that is, we also had a strong social perspective in what we were doing, and we also did something that, at the time, when Minister Pettovello designed it, the red circle, which is increasingly analog and doesn't understand anything we do, because the digital era has already passed us by, but the interesting thing is that, at one point, Minister Pettovello announced that social programs didn't have to be verified as working, that is, social programs are given and they were required to provide work in return, and obviously, let's say, no one explained how the whole situation was, and then we, knowing how tough the first months were going to be, while the adjustment took place, because apart from when you generate an increase in savings and there is no counterpart of investments, it generates a drop in activity and that makes employment fall and/or real wages fall and that could lead to social tension, which we wanted to cushion. And in that sense, it's very interesting because Minister Pettovello removed the need for them to verify that they had worked. Obviously, the large number of monkeys, and I apologize to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for insulting the monkeys, who look at Argentinian politics, where some obviously respond that they are very angry because they don't have a guideline, but let's say those monkeys – sorry to the monkeys, again – strongly criticized Minister Pettovello for this. What they didn't realize is that it was a way to end intermediaries, where all governments wanted to end intermediaries, but this government did it. So, basically, the people who receive social programs obviously receive a card and that goes to an account. So, they thought that with that they ensured that they would not be extorted, what they didn't know is that you must go to verify if they were working and there, when you were going to receive the verification that they had been working, the Bellibonis of life appeared, taking half of people's income. And they only validated it if you brought them the pretty ones, where they must validate that they were at the rallies. I mean, in reality, they stole half of the money and not only that, but they also had to go and work as picketers, so what you were doing was finance criminals and also ruining the functioning of the streets. In that sense, by eliminating the need for a counteroffer, until April, what happened, well, those criminals could not take away the money that people received from the social program. Therefore, without spending a penny more, this implied doubling the assistance and at the same time, we set up a phone line to report the pressures and extortions of these criminals and we have received close to 300,000 reports and today there are 18,000 cases in the courts. In other words, they are going to pay for having pressured people to go to the rallies. And furthermore, Belliboni threatened us that he was going to gather 50,000 people in the Plaza, so evidently, he planned to bring 100,000. From the Nation, we contributed with 12,000 officers, I don't remember the number that the City contributed, but it was tremendous because there were more police officers than people, as only 3,000 showed up, so it was a resounding success, coordinated at that moment between Minister Bullrich, Pettovello, and the Minister of Infrastructure. Additionally, in the public transportation, there was the announcement that fare-dodging wouldn't be penalized, and the lines for making complaints, and there we also started to organize the streets. In other words, we took away their firepower because now they can't extort people to do this, and we also started to enforce order. Therefore, one of the demands we received as a government, which was to put the streets in order, we are doing it. Because now, whoever blocks the streets doesn't get paid. And moreover, whoever does it... pays for it. And that is working perfectly. Not only that, but while we expected to achieve financial balance over the course of the year, the hard work of each minister allowed us to achieve that financial surplus in the month of January. And obviously, the "red circle" – it was logical – began to predict that we would have very strong deficits in February. And to the dismay of those who live betting against those of us who want to change, we again had a financial surplus in the month of February. Specifically, what we are doing is obtaining a result that, if you take the first two months, equivalent to half a percentage point of GDP, of primary surplus, that annualized would be 6 points. Therefore, we have over-adjusted what we needed, because we only needed to make an adjustment of 5 points of GDP. It's very funny because there are many who say that this is not sustainable, that this, that, when they said that the only thing that could be done was to adjust 1 percentage point of GDP, well, we adjusted 5 percentage points, but of course, that requires a dose of courage that others do not have. But that's not all because there's also the issue of the adjustment we made within the balance of the Central Bank, which generated a 10-point fiscal deficit, quasi-fiscal, and today that number is already 4. That is, with which there is no historical record – worldwide – of a government making an adjustment of 11 points of GDP in three months. And to the dismay of the "Helicopter Club" and all those who wish us ill, especially those whose schemes we've disrupted – which are quite evident, as you'll see them complaining. There's a saying that goes, "where there's a Kirchnerist kicking, there's a scheme that's been cut off," well, it's true. And not just Kirchnerists, but also, look at some other important economic groups. You can imagine who I'm talking about. Aside from that, they're very angry because Elon Musk has arrived. The important thing about this is that faced with the inflation disaster we had when we took office, in three weeks, inflation was at 30 percent, the retail figure, and it was expected to close the month at around 45 percent. I remember one weekend, journalist Gabriel Anello, a great journalist, and an even better person, asked me about inflation, and I told him the truth, that if it stayed at 30, it was a great number because it meant that by the fourth week, prices had stopped rising. And we found that it was 25, meaning there was a retraction in prices that had been fixed from the third week to the second. Then, in January, inflation was 20 percent, and in February, it was 13 percent. Now, when you strip out the statistical carryover effects related to one-time increases, like the tariff adjustments and prepaid health plans, that's equivalent to 6 points, so the true inflation rate for February was around 7%. In other words, we're bringing the inflation rate down to single digits. Furthermore, even if you were to include all these elements in the index, but somehow capture the effect of promotions, which can't be captured by the price index because it's a non-linear pricing scheme and depends on each citizen's consumption, then it's impossible to capture through the CPI due to the effects of "two for one," "three for two," and all those things. So, there's a sort of estimation of how much that weighs, but it can't be documented, and if that effect were considered, despite the previous factors, we would still be in single digits. Furthermore, in the third week of March, the price increase came to a halt, meaning we are moving in the right direction regarding anti-inflationary policy. In fact, some of the criticisms we receive are quite peculiar because, for example, if you look at the evolution of the inflation rate, the speed of the decline is stronger than what occurred during the convertibility period. When you examine the effects of stabilization during convertibility, prices are falling much faster today, or the inflation rate is declining much faster. This also makes sense, and what happens is that during convertibility, the money supply was endogenous, meaning that when there was an increase in the demand for money, the way to validate it was to bring in dollars and sell them to the Central Bank, which implied an expansion of the money supply and allowed for the re-adjustment of relative prices to occur with upward pressure on prices. Notice that since we took office, the monetary base has practically not changed, despite buying $11.5 billion in the market. Not only that, but we also had an expansion of the money supply due to the PUCs that the previous Central Bank administration used to try to control the exchange rate, and there was also expansion due to interest-bearing liabilities. However, the contraction due to BOPREAL has been so significant that the monetary base has barely changed or changed very little. So, we still have the same monetary base of $10 billion, but now on the asset side, we have $11.5 billion more in reserves. Therefore, we are undergoing a very strong process of balancing the Central Bank's balance sheet, and soon we will have net reserves close to zero, whereas the previous government left us with $11.5 billion in negative reserves. Not only are we achieving that, but also when the demand for money is restored, since the nominal money supply is fixed, this implies that to rebuild monetary holdings, people have to sell goods. Therefore, the deceleration of price growth is much more severe than in the convertible scheme because in the convertible scheme, the money supply expanded according to the demand for money and did not conflict with the goods market, which is what causes the inflation rate to fall much faster. I also find it very amusing to those who demand changing the pace of the exchange rate evaluation, which is ridiculous because today the free exchange rate shows no gap. If I take the reference exchange rate from the Central Bank and multiply it by 1.175, which is the PAIS Tax, it would be around 1,060. Therefore, I don't have a gap; I have a negative gap. So, if the market doesn't put it elsewhere, why would I arbitrarily modify it? Based on what? On a calculation made by clueless economists because they make that calculation of the real exchange rate, and the question is, have they never seen that during crisis periods, the real exchange rate is very high, and during boom periods, it is very low? Have they not seen the trend? Have the supply and demand conditions for all goods in the Argentinian and global economy not changed? How can they pretend to be so arrogant as to determine the price of something? Moreover, they average the average. Of what? If with the standard deviation they have, that average is ridiculous. I have an article about that, which says that the real exchange rate is when economists are part of the problem. Moreover, it implies a problem of fatal arrogance or rudeness because it would imply knowing the preferences, technology, and endowments, not only of our economy but also of the rest of the world. It seems quite pathetic to believe that they can have all that information to make all those decisions. Unfortunately, in Argentina, public education - because it's all public, it can be privately managed or state-managed - has done a lot of harm by brainwashing people and leading them to read authors who have truly been disastrous for human history and especially for Argentina. I always joke that if you go to the University of Buenos Aires, to the Faculty of Economics, and ask, "Who is Ludwig von Mises?" They will tell you he's the 9th of Holland, while for others, he's the greatest economist of all time alongside Murray Newton Rothbard. But, of course, they know the bearded one, the German impoverisher Marx, they know him. But beyond this situation, the other funny thing is that if I have the future dollar curve aligned with the Crawling Peg that the Central Bank is implementing, why would I need to devalue? It's incredible, it's ridiculous. They're looking at market data and no. The whole market is wrong, they resemble James. It's incredible because when Keynesians talk about what a great investor James was... He was involved in finance and went bankrupt like a rat and the argument... if you look at Damodaran's Valuation book, there's James’s quote saying he was so arrogant that he said, "It's no use being right when the whole market is wrong. You'll lose anyway." So, everyone was wrong except him, but when they all turned against him, he lost money and went bankrupt. He had to go ask his father, who was friends with Marshall, for help, took a 6-month course, and then got into Cambridge. And when they say he was a great investor, it was all a lie because in reality, as a person with a lot of influence in English politics, he was on both sides of the counter during the War and the Great Depression. I mean, he was in both England and the United States, and Mr. James, the fortune he made, he made through what today would put him in jail, which is the inside trading. That is, he would take information from the American government, which he would use on certain things, and trade with it. It's like the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko was a choirboy compared to James. So, it's also another myth that he was a great investor; the guy played with classified information. I mean, nobody else thought of it, but he did. That's why all the regulations on Wall Street came afterward. So, it seems quite comical that we have to change the crawling peg when the entire futures curve is aligned with monetary policy. And in this whole context, given the commitment we have to the deficit zero policy, I often say that I've been tied to the deficit zero policy like Ulysses to the main mast, with the advantage that I have my ministers shooting at the sirens. So, we're going, and we're doing it well. So, from receiving an economy that had a PAIS risk of 2,900 points, today it's already reaching 2,400. Analysts are seeing that we're heading towards 1,000. That's not insignificant because it opens up possibilities for us to enter the capital markets. Our credit rating has been raised, bonds that used to cost $18 are now worth $54, and Argentinian assets have appreciated significantly. When you look at the GDP data today, it's true that it fell in the first quarter, by about 4.5-points, but it's also true that analysts were expecting a 6-point drop. So, we're making a much stronger adjustment than analysts anticipated, and we're falling less. And that also encourages the idea of a "V-shaped" recovery. A very interesting piece of data from the Orlando Ferreres Consultancy emerged, which is that the seasonally adjusted figure for February was positive, just a little bit. So, we're not getting excited about that number, but at least it seems that we'll be finding the bottom at some point in the near future, and many analysts are already talking about a "V-shaped" recovery, which is understandable when you look at how quickly the PAIS risk is falling. At the same time, we are working on the issue of lifting currency controls, and as soon as we manage to clean up the Central Bank's balance sheet, when we can get rid of all the interest-bearing liabilities and put an end to this nefarious practice of remunerating liabilities, what this will imply is that the issuance of money through interest-bearing liabilities will be halted. Simultaneously, another thing we are working on is a reform of the financial system to move towards an integrated system with the capital market and build a banking system that is anti-runs. The truth is, that wouldn't be a problem today because credit to the non-financial private sector is 4-points of GDP, meaning we don't have a financial system; there is no financial system. Therefore, it's interesting that we start building a financial system that doesn't require a lender of last resort. So, if that reform includes integrating the format of banks with a format of the capital market so that we can move towards a system of free banking, that will allow us, when we have that reform, to open the financial system, lift currency controls, and in that context also pass the law against monetary issuance, where basically we consider seigniorage a crime, it's theft, it's counterfeiting, it's fraud. Issuing money is a scam. And in that sense, if there were to be monetary issuance, the President of the Central Bank, the board, the President of the Nation, the Minister of Economy, and deputies and senators who have approved budgets with fiscal deficits would go to jail. Obviously, you might say to me, "But this is Argentina," and surely another criminal will come along and change things and overturn that law. But we will give it the category of non-prescriptible, as if it were a crime against humanity. Therefore, yes, another criminal may come and change these conditions and return to the practice of issuing money, but then another may come and say, "You are a criminal, you did that," and put them in jail. So, we are going for a solution of these characteristics to end this scam of monetary issuance in Argentina. And obviously, as we can continue advancing in this system of free banking, of deep capital markets moving towards a complete system, and we have stopped issuance through rediscounts, issuance through remunerated liabilities, issuance to finance the treasury, we will have a free exchange rate, with the money supply fixed, and if it is necessary for more money to enter the system, it will be entered by the agents themselves. For example, they will open their mattress and start making transactions. Therefore, the monetization of the economy will be done by individuals themselves with the currencies they want to transact. Currency competition has a very interesting consequence. For example, if you're in the oil sector like Alejandro, you can transact with your peers in WTI, or if you're in the gas business, you can transact with others in BTU. If you're in the agriculture sector, you can transact with others using soybeans in Chicago, and so on. Each will have its own currency. This is equivalent to having a basket of currencies where the weights are determined endogenously by the people, instead of being determined by a bureaucrat at their discretion, which they will always get wrong. Even if they did it right, it would have to be this result, and that's what the agents do, so we don't need a bureaucrat sticking their finger in anywhere because they already know where the finger ends up, and often, it ends up being the arm, not the finger, where they stick it. If they had a vaseline business, they would be happier celebrating. So, once we achieve this, we'll be able to lift the currency controls. Currently, we have excess demand in the Foreign Exchange Market and excess supply in the rest of the economy, resulting in low bond prices, high interest rates, and high PAIS Tax. It also means oversupply in the goods market, leading to economic activity deterioration. In fact, our per capita GDP is 15% lower than in 2011, and we have the same number of jobs in the private sector as in 2011. This implies an increase in the number of poor and indigent people, leading to social pressure for support. Naturally, when we close this excess demand in the Foreign Exchange Market, all other excess supplies will close as well. This will result in higher bond prices, lower interest rates, closing the imbalance in the goods market, economic expansion, improvements in real wages, employment, and reduction in poverty and indigence. Then, the economy will start to rebound, despite the corrupt institutions we have and the economy's deep capitalization due to over 20 years of populism. Nonetheless, we can grow and generate genuine economic growth without inflation. And we can do all of this despite the politics, despite all the obstacles, and despite all the garbage they throw at us. But you know what? There's something wonderful, something that even the analog red circle doesn't see. Every DNU issued in Argentina, all of them were aimed at generating regulations, in other words, reducing market freedom, making markets more concentrated, giving businesses to cronies, huge scams, and above all, encroaching on individual freedoms. Remember what they did during the pandemic, this gang of criminals, and yet there were people applauding them for locking us up. No one opposed that deluge of DNUs. Our DNU is the first in history to restore individual freedoms, making markets more competitive. Look at the wonderful thing in the issue of rentals; you couldn't find a property. The number of rental properties doubled, prices in real terms dropped, and the real estate market expanded strongly during the month of February. Look at the interesting things the DNU achieved, which is still in effect, but had a setback in the Senate, which, by the way, isn't so bad because if we only have seven senators and we got 25 votes, it wasn't so bad, there's improvement, there are people betting on change. But obviously, since this also touches on political scams, evidently, since politicians don't want to give up their scams, don't want to lose their privileges, don't want to give up anything, they'd rather sink Argentinians into misery to maintain their caste privileges, that's why they overturned the DNU. And this is very interesting because if I had told you that in two or three months, we were going to be able to order the Argentine ideological spectrum, you would have said I was crazy. And after what happened with the Basic Law and what happened with the DNU, it's wonderful in terms of the principle of revelation; they left all their fingers dirty. On one side, there are the orcs, who are orcs and can't be expected to behave differently because they are orcs. Then there are the people who truly want change, and there are the fraudulent criminals who say they want change, but in reality, they disguise themselves as wanting change but are just as criminal as the orcs, but they are ashamed to be associated with them. So, they hide behind formalities and all those issues, but deep down, they are the same garbage as the orcs. It was very interesting because it became evident, both in the voting in the House, particularly on the articles, and in the Senate the other day, they were exposed. Today, with the vote, it became clear who is against progress, who the criminals are, who are in favor of scams and theft, and who are against returning freedom to the people, against competitive markets, and against letting go of the scams so that people can get their money back. So, it's wonderful because in three months, we ended up unmasking these criminals. And that's also very interesting because it won't come for free in the midterm election; they will pay with their votes, and those criminals will be left out. That will allow us to have a much better midterm election than the one we had last year. That's interesting because we'll have another composition of Congress, and all the reforms that we couldn't push through now, we'll do it at that time, starting on December 11th, 2025. Furthermore, we'll push through the 3,000 pending reforms that we couldn't pass because of this group of criminals who are the obstruction machine, who want the status quo to continue, where you pay the bill, and they benefit. Therefore, I am very optimistic about the future because we are achieving a lot of things despite politics, and people are seeing that. It's very interesting because even though we are facing the largest adjustment in the history of humanity, with 70% of Argentinians acknowledging that they are worse off... There are some very important data points. The first one is that when we took office, only 20% of Argentinians believed they would be better off in a year's time, but in January, that number rose to 30%, in February it climbed to 42%, and today it stands at 50%. This means that despite being worse off in the present, 50% of Argentinians are convinced that we will be better off from now on. Not only that, but 70% of Argentinians are convinced that we will defeat inflation, with 50% of them believing we will do it in the first year and 20% believing we will do it in the second year. When you look at what's happening in terms of a word that represents the sentiment of Argentinians, the word that appears most strongly and fundamentally dominates is "Hope". Yes, people have "Hope", people see that we are going to make it. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and people are seeing it, even though they are going through a tough time now. They've realized that populism leads nowhere, they've realized that the solution lies in embracing the ideas of Liberty, and that's no small feat. If today were the elections in a runoff, we would be getting 58%, that is, it would be 58, 42. Instead of +2, we are +16, and when you ask that group: Who would you vote for in the first round? They would vote for ‘Libertad Avanza’ with 48%, that is, we improved the voting strength by 60% compared to what we obtained. This means that with that alone, we would already win in the first round because the second person in voting intention is Mrs. Cristina Fernández Kirchner with 20%. But not only that, there are 10 points, which if we go for the most rudimentary case, half and half, 48 and 5 = 53. Therefore, what I want to tell you is that there is hope. Do you know why there is hope? Because people woke up, they decided to stop being sheep and decided to be Lions now. Therefore, there is hope because Argentinians are embracing the ideas of freedom, not only that I'm going to tell them that we're going to be better, but they also already know that we're going to be better. Therefore, Argentina does have a future because that future is liberal. Thank you very much.

Next June 2nd, Mexicans have an historical appointment with the ballot boxes. From them will almost certainly emerge the country’s first female president. The two contenders represent divergent models. The incumbent, embodied by Claudia Sheinbaum, inherits a version that, in the name of the greater wealth redistribution, concentrated all power in the figure of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his party, Morena. The alternative is offered by a coalition of opposition parties. They and their presidential candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez, advocate for the need to respect certain institutional checks and balances. But the credibility of those organizations, who governed between 2000 and 2018, and likely of the electoral democracy model they represent, is seriously questioned. Amidst this context, the high and persistent approval of López Obrador may offer revealing, though not definitive, clues. The latest report from Oraculus, a poll aggregator, recorded that 68% of Mexican citizens approve President López Obrador's management, while only 29% disapprove. The portal regularly processes results from more than a dozen of the main polling firms. Specifically, the survey conducted by ‘El Financiero’ (newspaper) in December 2023 showed the smallest difference between the approval (55%) and disapproval (44%) of the president by citizens, which nonetheless was eleven percentage points. A stable and positive six-year approval rating For five years, the approval rating of the Mexican president has managed to avoid steep declines. As the electoral campaign kicks off, all signs indicate that it will continue to be stable and positive. Unfortunately, analysts underestimate the impact that such a situation may have on the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. This stance is associated with three powerful myths. Myth 1: approving is one thing, voting is another. The president’s popularity matters little for the outcome of the presidential election. This myth blatantly ignores an essential reference. Thirty years ago, the political scientist Fabián Echegaray was the pioneer in revealing that the popularity of Latin American leaders is the best predictor of the result that the ruling party candidate will obtain in the election. Approving and voting are two different acts, but there tends to be a strong positive link between them. It would be puzzling for democracy if citizens regularly rejected at the polls governments whose performance they approve of in public opinion polls. The Latin American comparative experience shows that between 1982 and 2023, a total of thirty-five leaders from fourteen countries in the region, whose elections took place in a free and transparent environment, reached the months prior to the start of the electoral campaign with positive approval ratings. In twenty-seven cases (77.14%), there was a generous and sufficient transfer from the popularity of the current executive to the vote count of the official party’s presidential candidate. Forewarned is forearmed. The positive approval of the incumbent tends to consistently anticipate the continuity of the ruling party in power. The exceptions Only in eight cases did this trend not materialize. The first record, dates back to 1990 in the presidential elections of Costa Rica. The last dated in 2020 during the elections in the Dominican Republic. In all those electoral processes, the government’s presidential candidate seemed bolstered by the high approval rating of the incumbent leader. However, they were defeated at the polls. The common feature in practically all cases was that the party in power faced the campaign affected by a strong process of internal division. This fact dispersed the pro-government vote, a scenario that ended up benefiting the opposition. That’s not the current situation of the ruling party in Mexico, Morena. Until recently, the organization faced the possibility of a traumatic rupture when former Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard did not recognize the results of the internal electoral process, challenged them, and even threatened to leave the party along with a legion of sympathizers. But the threat of a rupture dissipated when Ebrard finally backed down. The opposition never properly gauged the true depth of a potential internal split in Morena led by the former Chancellor. Although the episode could end up being the only serious threat to the current purpose of retaining the reins of power. Myth 2: the theory of presidential popularity transfer does not apply in Mexico. There is a belief that while the theory of presidential popularity transfer may apply in other regions, it does not do so in the case of Mexico. The assumptions in favor would be as follows: 1. Heading into the 2000 presidential elections, PRI President Ernesto Zedillo had an approval rating of 65%. However, the current presidential candidate, Francisco Labastida was defeated by the ‘Partido Acción Nacional’ (PAN) candidate, Vicente Fox. 2. Similarly, prior to the 2012 presidential elections, Felipe Calderón had a 60% approval rating, but it didn’t end up benefiting the current candidate, Josefina Vázquez Mota, who relegated to third place in the race. Explaining the controversial Mexican cases While most Latin American countries have held an average of approximately seven presidential elections since their transition, Mexico has only had three following the political alternation in 2000: the elections of 2006, 2012 and 2018. With so few cases, the emergence of a trend is always in its infancy. This is especially true if one of the three cases, the 2012 elections, indeed constituted an anomaly. The high approval rating of President Calderón did not translate into votes for the current presidential candidate. Indeed, the 2012 elections constitute one of the regional cases we previously highlighted as exceptions. However, there is sufficient evidence accumulated regarding the fact that during the 2012 electoral process, the PAN experienced an underlying internal division that decisively affected its chances of winning. Even with the exception, the trend for presidential approval to reflect in the electoral outcome has been predominant in Mexico (66.66%). After the 2024 elections, it is very likely to experience an increase that brings it very close to the Latin American average rate (82.14%). One of the criteria guiding the selection of cases in research on presidential popularity is that presidential elections have been held after the democratic transition. By definition, authoritarian regimes do not guarantee an autonomous public opinion and tend to have elections that are not free and transparent. In that sense, the popularity of President Ernest Zedillo cannot be considered a reliable indicator. It is a “citizen perception” reported within an authoritarian regime. An environment where fear, censorship, persecution, and retaliation prevail. Sartori (1992) insisted on the obligation to differentiate between “opinion in the public” and “opinion of the public”. Myth 3: the outcome of the presidential election is decided during the campaign The role of elections as a mechanism for the peaceful selection of political leaders has fostered the belief that the campaign always represents a decisive moment in shaping electoral preferences. This explains the journalistic reports about a potential campaign in which a stiff incumbent candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, is cornered by the rhetorical skills and charisma of the opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, and by the impact of the negatives associated with the performance of the incumbent ruler. In reality, the campaigns have a very limited effect on the electoral outcome, they only matter under very specific conditions. Most of the time, they only reinforce the decision that voters made before the start of the campaign itself. Pattern or plasticity? However, despite the abundant empirical evidence, it would be a mistake to take for granted a victory for Morena in the 2024 presidential elections. The relevant thing is just to acknowledge that the outcome seems to favor Morena. Political events resist being confined to a framework. They have the potential for surprise and innovation. Political actors have memory, learn from experience, and often show ingenuity. Under certain conditions, these attributes lead them to reverse the expected historical outcome. Once social science is able to reveal certain patterns of behavior, the next challenge is to infer whether in a new experience the norm or the exception will ultimately prevail. The dilemma between pattern and plasticity. Pattern marks regularity, the behavior that, by dint of repetition, is expected. Meanwhile, plasticity means assuming that there will always be exceptions to any regularity or generalization we may reach, in principle.